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Library 

OF  THE 

University  of  NortH  Carolina 

This  book  was  presented  by  the  family 
of  the  late 

KEMP  PLUMMEE  BATTLE,  '49 

President  of  the  University  of  North  Carolina 
from  1876  to  1890 


CklS'o  ?* 


OFFICIAL  REPORT 


OF  THE 


History  Committee 


OF  THE 


wr 


GRAND  CAMP,  C.  V., 

Department  of  Virginia. 


4> 
By  Hon.  GEORGE  L  CHRISTIAN, 

Chairman. 


Read  at  Petersburg,  Va.,  October  25th.  1901,  and 

Published  by  Order  of  the  Grand 

Camp  of  Virginia. 


*& 


A  Contrast  Between  the  Way  the  War  was  Con- 
ducted by  the  Federals  and  the  Way  it  was 
Conducted  by  the  Confederates, 
Drawn  Almost  Entirely  from 
Federal  Sources. 


HISTORY  COMMITTEE, 

George  L.  Christian,  Chairman. 
R.  T.  Barton,  Carter  R.  Bishop,    R.  A.  Brock, 

Rev.  B.  D.  Tucker,  John  W.  Daniel,       James  Mann, 
R.  S.  B.  Smith,        T.  H.  Edwards,        W.  H.  Hurkamp, 
John  W.  Fulton,     M.  W.  Hazlewood,  Micajah  Woods. 


0.  E.  FLANHART  PRINTING  CO. ,  RICHMOND,  VA. 


At  the  fourteenth  annual  meeting  of  the  Grand  Camp,  C.  V., 
Department  of  Virginia,  held  in  Petersburg,  Va.,  on  the  25th 
day  of  October,  1901,  Comrade  N".  V.  Randolph  offered  the 
following  resolution: 

Resolved,  That  five  thousand  copies  of  the  report  of  the  His- 
tory Committee,  made  by  Judge  George  L.  Christian,  be  printr 
ed,  and  that  a  vote  of  thanks  be  extended  to  Judge  Christian  for 
iia  able  report.     Adopted  unanimously: 


fa/x^w^^ 


OFFICIAL  REPORT  OF  THE 

History  Committee  of  the  Grand  Camp  C.  V., 


DEPARTMENT  OF  VIRGINIA. 


OCTOBER  15,  1901. 


To  the  Grand  Camp  of  Confederate  Veterans  of  Virginia: 

Before  entering  upon  the  discussion  of  the  subject  selected  for 
consideration  in  this  report,  your  Committee  begs  leave  to 
tender  its  thanks  to  the  Camp,  and  to  the  public,  for  the  many 
expressions  it  has  received  of  their  appreciation  of  its  last  two 
reports.  These  expressions  have  come  from  every  section  of  the 
country,  and  they  are  not  only  most  gratifying,  showing,  as 
they  do,  the  importance  of  the  work  of  this  Camp  in  establish- 
ing the  justice  of  the  Confederate  cause;  but  that  this  work 
is  also  causing  the  truth  concerning  that  cause  to  be  taught 
to  our  children,  which  was  not  the  case  until  these  Confederate 
Camps  effected  that  great  result.  Our  report  of  1899,  prepared 
by  your  late  distinguished  and  lamented  Chairman,  Dr.  Hunter 
McGuire,  was  directed  mainly  to  a  criticism  of  certain  histories 
then  used  in  our  schools,  and  to  demonstrate  the  fact  that  the 
South  did  not  go  to  war  either  to  maintain  or  to  perpetuate  the 
institution  of  slavery,  as  our  enemies  have  tried  so  hard  to  make 
the  world  believe  was  the  case.     That  of  1900  was  directed — 

(1)  To  establish  the  right  of  secession  (the  real  question  at 
issue  in  the  war)  by  Northern  testimony  alone,  and 

(2)  To  establish  the  fact  that  the  North  was  the  aggressor  in 
bringing  on  the  war,  and  by  the  same  kind  of  testimony. 

These  two  reports  have  been  published,  the  first  for  two,  and 
the  second  for  one  year,  and  as  far  as  we  know,  no  fact  contended 
for  in  either  has  been  attempted  to  be  controverted.  We  feel 
justified,  therefore,  in  claiming  that  these  facts  have  been  estab- 
lished. 

HOW  THE  WAK  WAS  CONDUCTED. 

Having  then,  we  think,  established  the  justice  of  the  Confede- 
rate Cause,  and  that  the  Northern  people  were  responsible  for, 
and  the  aggressors  in  bringing  on  the  war,  and  both  of  these  facts 


by  testimony  drawn  almost  exclusively  from  Northern  sources,  it 
is  only  left  for  us  to  consider  how  the  war,  thus  forced  upon  the 
South  by  the  North,  was  conducted  by  the  respective  combatants 
through  their  representatives,  both  in  the  Cabinet  and  in  the 
field?  We  fully  recognize  that  within  the  limits  of  this  report 
it  is  impossible  to  do  more  than  to  "touch  the  fringe,"  as  it  were, 
of  this  important  inquiry.  The  details  of  the  horrors  of  the  four 
years  of  that  war  would  fill  many,  many  volumes,  and  it  is  not 
our  purpose  or  desire  to  go  fully  into  any  such  sad  and  harrowing 
recital.  We  propose,  therefore,  only  to  give  the  principles  of 
civilized  warfare  as  adopted  by  the  Federal  authorities  for  the 
government  of  their  armies  in  the  field  during  the  war,  and  then 
cite  some  of  the  most  flagrant  violations  of  those  principles  by 
some  of  the  most  distinguished  representatives  of  that  govern- 
ment in  the  wrar  waged  by  it  against  the  South.  Of  course,  in 
doing  this  we  shall  have  to  refer  to  some  things  very  familiar  to 
all  of  us;  but  the  repetition  of  them  in  this  report  would  never- 
theless seem  necessary  and  proper  to*  its  completeness." 

In  performing  this  distasteful  task  we  wish,  in  the  beginning, 
to  disclaim  any  and  all  purpose  or  wish  on  our  part  to  reopen  the 
wounds  or  to  rekindle  the  feelings  of  bitterness  engendered  by 
that  unholy  and  unhappy  strife.  As  we  said  in  our  last  report, 
we  recognize  that  this  whole  country  is  one  country  and  our 
country,  and  we  of  the  South  are  as  true  to  it,  and  will  do  as 
much  to  uphold  its  honor  and  defend  its-  rights,  as  those  of  any 
other  section.  But  we  are  also  true  to  a  sacred  past,  a  past  which 
had  principles  for  which  thousands  of  our  comrades  suffered  and 
died,  and  which  are  living  principles  to-day — principles  which 
we  fought  to  maintain,  and  for  which  our  whole  people,  almost 
without  exception,  willingly  and  heroically  offered  their  lives, 
their  blood  and  their  fortunes;  and  whilst  we  do  not  propose  to 
live  in  that  past,  we  do  propose  that  the  principles  of  that  past 
shall  live  in  us,  and  that  we  will  transmit  these  principles  to  our 
children  and  their  descendants  to  the  latest  generations  yet  un- 
born. We  believe  that  only  by  doing  this  can  we  and  they 
make  good  citizens  of  the  republic,  as  founded  by  our  fathers, 
and  that  not  to  do  this  would  be  false  to  the  memory  of  our  dead 
and  to  ourselves. 

Then  let  us  enquire,  first,  What  were  the  rules  adopted  by 
the  Federals  for  the  government  of  their  armies  in  war?  The 
most  important  of  these  are  as  follows: 

(1)  "  Private  property,  unless  forfeited  by  crimes,  or  by  of- 
fences of  the  owner  against  the  safety  of  the  army,  or  the  dignity 
of  the  United  States,  and  after  conviction  of  the  owner  by  court 


martial,  can  be  seized  only  by  way  of  military  necessity  for  the 
support  or  other  benefit  of  the  army  of  the  United  States." 

(2)  "All  wanton  violence  committed  against  persons  in  the 
invaded  country;  all  destruction  of  property  not  commanded  by 
the  authorized  officer;  all  robbery;  all  pillage  or  sacking,  even 
after  taking  a  place  by  main  force;  all  rape,  wounding,  maiming, 
or  killing  of  such  inhabitants,  are  prohibited  under  penalty  of 
death,  or  such  other  severe  punishment  as  may  seem  adequate 
for  the  gravity  of  the  offence." 

(3)  "Crimes  punishable  by  all  penal  codes,  such  as  arson,  mur- 
der, maiming,  assaults,  highway  robbery,  theft,  burglary,  fraud, 
forgery  and  rape,  if  committed  by  an  American  soldier  in  a 
hostile  country  against  its  inhabitants,  are  not  only  punishable, 
as  at  home,  but  in  all  cases  in  which  death  is  not  inflicted,  the 
severer  punishment  shall  be  preferred,  because  the  criminal  has, 
as  far  as  in  him  lay,  prostituted  the  power  conferred  on  a  man 
of  arms,  and  prostituted  the  dignity  of  the  United  States." 

JSTow,  as  we  have  said,  these  were  the  important  provisions 
adopted  by  the  Federals  for  the  government  of  their  armies  in 
war. 

General  McClellan,  a  gentleman,  a  trained  and  educated  sol- 
dier, recognized  these  principles  from  the  beginning,  and  acted 
on  them.  On  July  7,  1862,  he  wrote  to  Mr.  Lincoln  from  Har- 
rison's Landing,  saying,  among  other  things : 

"This  rebellion  has  assumed  the  character  of  a  war;  as  such 
it  should  be  conducted  upon  the  highest  principles  of  Christian 
civilization.  It  should  not  be  a  war  looking  to  the  subjugation 
of  the  people  of  any  State  in  any  event.  It  should  not  be  at  all 
a  war  upon  populations,  but  against  armed  forces  and  political 
organizations.  Neither  confiscation  of  property,  political  exe- 
cutions of  persons,  territorial  organization  of  States,  nor  forcible 
abolition  of  slavery,  should  be  contemplated  for  a  moment.'' 

"In  prosecuting  the  war,  all  private  property  and  unarmed 
persons,  should  be  strictly  protected,  subject  only  to  the  neces- 
sity of  military  operations.  All  property  taken  for  military  use 
should  be  paid  or  receipted  for;  pillage  and  waste  should  be 
treated  as  high  crimes;  all  unnecessary  trespass  sternly  pro- 
hibited, and  offensive  demeanor  by  the  military  towards  citizens 
promptly  rebuked." 

See  2  Am.  Conflict  (Greely),  p.  248. 

The  writer's  home  was  visited  by  the  Army  of  the  Potomac, 


both  under  McClellan  and  under  Grant  At  the  time  McClellan 
was  in  command  guards  were  stationed  to  protect  the  premises,, 
with  orders  to  shoot  any  soldier  caught  depredating,  and  but 
little  damage  was  actually  done;  none  with  the  consent  or  con- 
nivance of  the  commanding  general.  But  when  the  same  army 
came,  commanded  by  Grant,  every  house  on  the  place,  except 
one  negro  cabin,  was  burned  to  the  ground;  all  stock  and  every- 
thing else  of  any  value  was  carried  off.  The  occupants  were  only 
women,  children  and  servants;  nearly  all  the  servants  were  car- 
ried off;  one  of  the  ladies  was  so  shocked  at  the  outrages  com- 
mitted as  to  cause  her  death,  and  the  other  and  the  children 
were  turned  out  of  doors  without  shelter  or  food,  and  with  only 
the  clothing  they  had  on.  So  that  the  writer  has  had  a  real  ex- 
perience of  the  difference  between  civilized  and  barbarous  war- 
fare. To  show  how  little  the  advice  of  McClellan,  as  to  the 
principles  on  which  the  war  should  be  conducted,  was  heeded 
at  Washington,  and  it  would  seem  stimulated  in  an  opposite 
course  by  his  suggestions,  we  find  in  two  weeks  from  the  date 
of  his  letter  to  Mr.  Lincoln,  just  quoted — viz.,  on  July  20, 
1862 — -that  General  John  Pope,  commanding  the  "Army  of 
Virginia,"  issued  the  following  order: 

"  GENERAL  POPE'S  ORDERS. 

(1)  "The  people  of  the  Valley  of  the  Shenandoah  and 
throughout  the  regions  of  the  operations  of  this  army,  living 
along  the  lines  of  railroad  and  telegraph  and  along  the  routes 
of  travel  in  rear  of  the  United  States  forces,  are  notified  that 
they  will  be  held  responsible  for  any  injury  done  to  the  track, 
line  or  road,  or  for  any  attack  upon  trains  or  straggling  soldiers 
by  bands  of  guerrillas  in  their  neighborhood."  *  *  *  * 
"Safety  of  life  and  property  of  all  persons  living  in  the  rear  of 
our  advancing  armies  depends  upon  the  maintenance  of  peace 
and  quiet  among  themselves,  and  of  the  unmolested  movement 
through  their  midst  of  all  pertaining  to  the  military  service. 
They  are  to  understand  distinctly  that  this  security  of  travel  is 
their  only  warrant  of  safety.  It  is  therefore  ordered,  that  when- 
ever a  railroad,  wagon  road,  or  telegraph  is  injured  by  parties 
of  guerrillas,  the  citizens  living  within  five  miles  of  the  spot 
shall  be  turned  out  in  mass  to  repair  the  damage,  and  shall,  be- 
sides, pay  to  the  United  States,  in  money  or  in  property,  to  be 
levied  by  military  force,  the  full  amount  of  the  pay  and  sub- 
sistence of  the  whole  force  necessary  to  coerce  the  performance 
of  the  work  during  the  time  occupied  in  completing  it.  If  a 
soldier  or  a  legitimate  follower  of  the  army,  be  fired  upon  from 
any  house,  the  house  shall  be  razed  to  the  ground,  and  the  in- 


habitants  sent  prisoners  to  the  headquarters  of  the  army.  If 
an  outrage  occurs  at  any  place  distant  from  settlements,  the 
people  within  five  miles  around  shall  be  held  accountable,  and 
made  to  pay  an  indemnity  sufficient  for  the  case." 

We  defy  investigation  in  the  history  of  modern  warfare  to 
find  anything  emanating  from  a  general  commanding  an  army 
as  cowardly  and  as  cruel  as  this  order.  Just  think  of  it:  The 
women,  children  and  non-combatants,  living  within  five  miles 
of  the  rear  of  an  invading  army,  ordered  to  protect  it  from  the 
incursions  of  the  opposing  army,  or  upon  failure  to  do  this, 
whether  from  inability  or  any  other  cause,  to  forfeit  their  lives 
■or  their  property.     . 

Again,  this  same  commander,  on  July  23,  1862,  issued  the 
following  order: 

"Commanders  of  army  corps,  divisions,  brigades  and  detached 
commands,  will  proceed  immediately  to  arrest  all  disloyal  male 
citizens  within  their  lines,  or  within  their  reach,  in  rear  of  their 
respective  stations.  Such  as  are  willing  to  take  the  oath  of  alle- 
giance to  the  United  States,  and  will  furnish  sufficient  security 
for  its  observance,  shall  be  permitted  to  remain  at  their  homes 
and  pursue,  in  good  faith,  their  accustomed  avocations.  Those 
who  refuse  shall  be  conducted  south,  beyond  the  extreme  pickets 
of  this  army,  and  be  notified  that  if  found  anywhere  within  our 
lines,  or  at  any  point  within  our  rear,  they  will  be  considered 
spies  and  subjected  to  the  extreme  rigor  of  military  law"  (i.  e., 
death  by  hanging). 

See  "The  Army  Under  Pope,"  by  Ropes,  pp.  175-6-7. 

This  last  order  Mr.  John  C.  Ropes,  of  Boston,  a  distinguished 
Northern  writer,  one  generally  fairer  to  the  South  than  others 
who  have  written  from  that  locality,  criticises  most  harshly,  and 
he  does  this,  too,  although  he  is  about  the  only  apologist,  as  far 
as  we  have  seen,  of  this  bombastic  and  incompetent  officer. 

General  Steinwehr,  one  of  Pope's  brigadiers,  seized  innocent 
and  peaceful  inhabitants  and  held  them  as  hostages  to  the  end 
that  they  should  be  murdered  in  cold  blood  should  any  of  his 
soldiers  be  killed  by  unknown  persons,  whom  he  designated  as 
"bushwhackers." 

On  the  very  day  of  the  signing  of  the  cartel  for  the  exchange 
of  prisoners  between  the  Federal  and  Confederate  authorities 
(July  22,  1862),  the  Federal  Secretary  of  War,  by  order  of  Mr. 
Lincoln,  issued  an  order  to  the  military  commanders  in  Virginia, 


South  Carolina,  Georgia,  Florida,  Alabama,  Mississippi,  Louis- 
iana, Texas  and  Arkansas,  directing  them  to  seize  and  use  any 
property  belonging  to  the  inhabitants  of  the  Confederacy,  which 
might  be  "necessary  or  convenient  for  their  several  commands," 
and  no  provision  was  made  for  any  compensation  to  the  owners 
of  private  property  thus  seized  acid  appropriated. 

This  order  was  such  a  flagrant  violation  of  the  rules  of  civilized 
warfare — those  adopted  by  the  Federal  Government  itself,, 
as  hereinbefore  quoted' — that  the  Confederate  Government 
sought  to  prevent  it  being  carried  into  execution  by  issuing  a 
general  order,  dated  August  1,  1862,  denouncing  this  order  of 
the  Federal  Secretary,  and  those  of  Pope  and  Steinwehr,  as 
"acts  of  savage  cruelty,"  violative  "of  all  rules  and  usages  of 
war,"  and  as  converting  the  "hostilities  hitherto  waged  against 
armed  forces  into  a  campaign  of  robbery  and  murder  against 
unarmed  citizens  and  peaceful  tillers  of  the  soil."  And  by  way 
of  retaliation,  declared  that  Pope  and  his  commissioned  officers 
were  not  to  be  considered  as  soldiers,  and  therefore  not  entitled 
to  the  benefit  of  the  cartel  for  the  parole  of  future  prisoners 
of  war,  and  ordered  that  if  Pope,  Steinwehr,  or  any  of  their  com- 
missioned officers,  were  captured,  they  should  be  kept  in  close 
confinement  as  long  as  the  foregoing  orders  remained  in  force. 

(See  1  South.  His,  Society  Papers,  302-3.) 

General  Robert  E.  Lee,  on  receiving  this  order  from  the  Con- 
federate authorities,  at  once  sent  a  communication  to  "The  Gen- 
eral Commanding  the  United  States  Army  at  Washington,"  in 
which,  referring  to  these  orders  of  Pope  and  the  Federal  War 
Department,  he  said: 

"Some  of  the  military  authorities  of  the  United  States  seem 
to  suppose  that  their  end  will  be  better  attained  by  a  savage  war, 
in  which  no  quarter  is  to  be  given  and  no  age  or  sex  will  be 
spared,  than  by  such  hostilities  as  are  alone  recognized  to  be 
lawful  in  modern  times.  We  find  ourselves  driven  by  our  ene- 
mies by  steady  progress  towards  a  practice  which  we  abhor,  and 
which  we  are  vainly  struggling  to  avoid." 

He  then  says :  • 

"Under  these  circumstances,  this  government  has  issued  the 
accompanying  general  order  (that  of  August  1,  1862),  which  I 
am  directed  by  the  President  to  transmit  to  you,  recognizing 
Major-General  Pope  and  his  commissioned  officers  to  be  in  a 
position  which  they  have  chosen  for  themselves — that  of  roh- 


hers  and  murderers — and  not  that  of  public  enemies,  entitled, 
if  captured,  to  be  treated  as  prisoners  of  war." 

At  this  day  it  may  be  safely  said,  that  there  are  few,  if  any, 
either  at  the  North  or  in  the  South,  who  will  question  either 
that  General  Lee  knew  the  rules  of  civilized  warfare,  or  that 
he  would  have  denounced  those  who  were  guilty  of  violating 
these  rules  as  "robbers  and  murderers,"  had  they  not  been  justly 
entitled  to  this  distinction.  And  let  it  be  distinctly  borne  in 
mind,  that  the  order  of  the  Federal  Secretary  of  War  was  issued 
by  order  of  the  President,  Mr.  Lincoln,  and  if  he  ever  rebuked 
Pope  or  Steinwehr,  or  any  of  the  others,  to  whom  we  shall  here- 
after refer,  for  their  outrages  and  cruelties  to  the  Southern 
people,  the  record,  as  far  as  we  can  find  it,  is  silent  on  that  sub- 
ject, 

GENERAL  MILROY'S  ORDER. 

On  the  28th  November,  1862,  General  E.  H.  Milroy  had  an 
order  sent  to  Mr.  Adam  Harper,  a  man  82  years  old,  and  a  crip- 
ple, one  who  had  served  as  a  soldier  in  the  war  of  1812,  and  vvho 
was  a  son  of  a  Revolutionary  soldier,  who  had  served  through- 
out that  war,  which  was  as  follows: 

"Mr.  Adam  Harper: 

"Sir, — In  consequence  of  certain  robberies  which  have  been 
committed  on  Union  citizens  of  this  county  by  bands  of  guer- 
rillas, you  are  hereby  assessed  to  the  amount  of  ($285.00)  two 
hundred  and  eighty-five  dollars,  to  make  good  their  losses,  and 
upon  your  failure  to  comply  with  the  above  assessment  by  the 
8th  day  of  December,  the  following  order  has  been  issued  to 
me  by  General  R.  H.  Milroy: 

"You  are  to  burn  their  houses,  seize  all  their  cattle  and  shoot 
them.  You  will  be  sure  that  you  strictly  carry  out  this  order. 
You  will  inform  the  inhabitants  for  ten  or  fifteen  miles  around 
your  camp,  on  all  the  roads  approaching  the  town  upon  which 
the  enemy  may  approach,  that  they  must  dash  in  and  give  you 
notice,  and  upon  any  one  failing  to  do  so,  you  will  burn  their 
houses  and  shoot  the  men. 

"By  order  of  Brigadier-General  R.  H.  Milroy. 

"H.  KELLOG,  Captain  Commanding  Post." 

Could  the  most  brutal  savagery  of  any  age  exceed  the  unrea- 
soning cruelty  of  this  order.  (See  1  South.  His.  Society  Papers, 
p.  231.) 


GENERAL  SHERMAN'S  CONDUCT. 

But  we  must  go  on.  In  the  earlier  part  of  the  war,  General 
William  T.  Sherman  knew  and  recognized  the  rules  adopted  by 
his  government  for  the  conduct  of  its  armies  in  the  field;  rnd 
so,  on  September  29,  1861,  he  wrote  to  General  Robert  Ander- 
son, at  Louisville,  Ky.,  saying,  among  other  things : 

"I  am  sorry  to  report,  that  in  spite  of  my  orders  and  en- 
treaties, our  troops  are  committing  depredations  that  will  ruin 
our  cause.  Horses  and  wagons  have  been  seized,  cattle,  sheep, 
hogs,  chickens  taken  by  our  men,  some  of  whom  wander  for 
miles  around.  I  am  doing,  and  have  done,  all  in  my  power  to 
stop  this,  but  the  men  are  badly  disciplined  and  give  little  heed 
to  my  orders  or  those  of  their  own  regimental  officers." 

(See  Sherman's  Raid,  by  Boynton,  page  23.) 

Later  on  General  Sherman  said:  "War  is  hell."  If  we  could 
record  here  all  the  testimony  in  our  possession,  from  the  people 
of  Georgia  and  South  Carolina,  who  had  the  misfortune  to  live 
along  the  line  of  his  famous  "march  to  the  sea,"  during  nearly 
the  whole  length  of  which  he  was  warring  against,  and  depre- 
dating on,  women,  children,  servants,  old  men,  and  other  non- 
combatants  (as  to  which  he  wrote  in  his  telegram  to  Grant,  "I 
can  make  this  march  and  make  Georgia  howl,"  Boynton,  page 
129),  it  would  show  that  he  had  certainly  contributed  all  in  his 
power  to  make  war  "Hell"  as  he  termed  it;  and  has  justly 
earned  the  distinction  of  being  called  the  ruling  genius  of  this 
creation. 

We  will  first  let  General  Sherman  himself  tell  what  was  done 
by  him  and  his  men  on  this  famous,  or  rather  infamous,  march. 
He  says  of  it  in  his  official  report: 

"We  consumed  the  corn  and  fodder  in  the  region  of  country 
thirty  miles  on  either  side  of  a  line  from  Atlanta,  to  Savannah; 
also  the  sweet  potatoes,  hogs,  sheep  and  poultry,  and  carried  off 
more  than  ten  thousand  horses  and  mules.  I  estimate  the  dam- 
age done  to  the  State  of  Georgia  at  one  hundred  million  dollars, 
at  least  twenty  millions  of  which  enured  to  our  benefit,  and  the 
remainder  was  simply  waste  and  destruction." 

But  we  will  introduce  other  witnesses,  and  these  some  of  his 
own  soldiers,  who  accompanied  him  on  his  march:  Captain 
Daniel  Oakley,  of  the  Second  Regiment,  Massachusetts  Volun- 
teers, in  Battles  and  Leaders,  says  this: 

"It  was  sad  to  see  the  wanton  destruction  of  property,  which 
was  the  work  of  'bummers,'  who  were  marauding  through  the 


9 

country  committing  every  sort  of  outrage.  There  was  no  re- 
straint, except  with  the  column  or  the  regular  foraging  parties. 

*  *  The  country  was  necessarily  left  to  take  care  of  itself  and 
became  a  howling  waste.  The  'Coffee  Coolers'  of  the  Army  of 
the  Potomac  were  archangels  compared  to  our  'bummers/  who 
often  fell  to  the  tender  mercies  of  Wheeler's  cavalry,  and  were 
never  heard  of  again,  meeting  a  fate  richly  deserved." 

Another  Northern  soldier,  writing  for  the  "Detroit  Free 
Press,"  gives  the  following  graphic  account:  After  describing 
the  burning  of  Marietta,  in  which-  the  writer  says,  among  other 
things,  "soldiers  rode  from  house  to  house,  entered  without 
ceremony,  and  kindled  fires  in  garrets  and  closets  and  stood  by 
to  see  that  they  were  not  extinguished."    He  then  further  says: 

"Had  one  been  able  to  climb  to  such  a  height  at  Atlanta  as 
to  enable  him  to  see  for  forty  miles  around,  the  day  Sherman 
marched  out,  he  would  have  been  appalled  at  the  destruction. 
Hundreds  of  houses  had  been  burned,  every  rod  of  fence  de- 
stroyed, nearly  every  fruit  tree  cut  down,  and  the  face  of  the 
country  so  changed  that  one  born  in  that  section  could  scarcely 
recognize  it.  The  vindictiveness  of  war  would  have  trampled 
the  very  earth  out  of  sight  had  such  a  thing  been  possible." 

Again  he  says: 

"At  the  very  beginning  of  the  campaign  at  Dalton,  the  Fede- 
ral  soldiery   had   received   encouragement    to   become   vandals. 

*  *  *  When  Sherman  cut  loose  from  Atlanta  everybody 
had  license  to  throw  off  restraint  and  make  Georgia  'drain  the 
bitter  cup.'  The  Federal  who  wants  to  learn  what  it  was  to 
license  an  army  to  become  vandals  should  mount  a  horse  at 
Atlanta  and  follow  Sherman's  route  for  fifty  miles.  He  can 
hear  stories  from  the  lips  of  women  that  would  make  him 
ashamed  of  the  flag  that  waved  over  him  as  he  went  into  battle. 
When  the  army  had  passed  nothing  was  left  but  a  trail  of  deso- 
lation and  despair.  No  houses  escaped  robbery,  no'  woman  es- 
caped insult,  no  building  escaped  the  firebrand,  except  by  some 
strange  interposition.  War  may  license  an  army  to  subsist  on 
the  enemy,  but  civilized  warfare  stops  at  live  stock,  forage  and 
provisions.  It  does  not  enter  the  houses  of  the  sick  and  helpless 
and  rob  women  of  their  finger  rings  and  carry  off  their  clothing." 

He  then  tells  of  the  "deliberate  burning  of  Atlanta"  by  Sher- 
man's order,  of  the  driving  out  from  the  city  of  its  whole  popu- 
lation of  all  ages,  sexes,  and  conditions  in  the  fields  of  a  deso- 


10 

lated  country  to  starve  and  die,  as  far  as  lie  knew  or  cared.  You 
have  only  to  read  these  recitals  and  you  have  the  picture  which 
Sherman  made  and  which  he  truly  denominated  "Hell." 

The  correspondence  between  Mayor  Calhoun  and  two  council- 
men  of  Atlanta,  representing  to  General  Sherman  the  frightful 
suffering  that  would  be  visited  on  the  people  of  that  city  by  the 
execution  of  his  inhuman  order,  and  General  Sherman's  reply, 
can  be  found  in  the  second  volume  of  Sherman's  Memoirs,  at 
pages  124-5;  we  can  only  extract  one  or  two  paragraphs  from 
each.    The  letter  of  the  former  says,  among  other  things: 

"  Many  poor  women  are  in  advanced  state  of  pregnancy,  others 

now  having  young  children,  and  whose  husbands,  for  the  greater 

part,  are  either  in  the  army,  prisoners,  or  dead.     Some  say,  I 

have  such  a  sick  one  at  my  house,  who  will  wait  on  them  when 

I  am  gone  ?    Others  say,  What  are  we  to  do  ?    We  have  no  house 

to  go  to,  and  no  means  to  buy,  build  or  rent  any;  no  parents, 

relatives  or  friends  to  go  to." 

******* 

"This  being  so  (they  say)  how  is  it  possible  for  the  people  still 
here  (mostly  women  and  children)  to  find  any  shelter?  And 
how  can  they  live  through  the  winter  in  the  woods- — no  shelter 
or  subsistence,  in  the  midst  of  strangers  who  know  them  i;ot, 
and  without  the  power  to  assist  them  much  if  they  were  willing 
to  do  so." 

"This  (they  say)  is  but  a  feeble  picture  of  the  consequences 
of  tins  measure.  You  know  the  woe,  the  horrors  and  the  suffer- 
ing cannot  be  described  by  words;  imagination  can  only  con- 
ceive it,  and  we  ask  you  to  take  these  things  into  consideration." 


To  this  pathetic  appeal  Sherman  coolly  replied  on  the 
next  day,  his  letter  commencing  as  follows: 

"I  have  your  letter  of  the  11th,  in  the  nature  of  a  petition 
to  revoke  my  orders  removing  all  the  inhabitants  from  Atlanta. 
I  have  read  it  carefully,  and  give  full  credit  to  your  statements 
of  the  distress  that  will  be  occasioned,  and  yet  I  shall  not  revoke 
my  orders,  because  they  were  not  designated  to  meet  the  humani- 
ties of  the  case,  but  to  prepare  for  the  future  struggles  in  which 

millions  of  e'ood  people  outside  of  Atlanta  have  a  deep  interest," 
&c      *     *     * 

After  he  had  started  on  his  "march  to  the  sea"  he  gives  an  ac- 
count of  Low  the  foraging  details  were  made  and  carried  out 
each  day,  and  concludes  by  saying: 


11 

"Although  this  foraging  was  attended  with  great  danger  imd 
hard  work,  there  seemed  to  be  a  chami  about  it  that  attracted 
the  soldiers,  and  it  was  a  privilege  to  be  detailed  on  such  a 
party." 

"Lastly,  they  returned  mounted  on  all  sorts  of  beasts,  which 
were  at  once  taken  from  them  and  appropriated  to  the  general 
use,  but  the  next  day  they  would  start  out  again  on  foot,  only 
to  repeat  the  experience  of  the  day  before.  No  doubt  (he  says) 
many  acts  of  pillage,  robbery  and  violence  were  committed  by 
these  parties  of  foragers,  usually  called  'bummers,'  for  I  have 
since  heard  of  jeivelry  taken  from  women  and  the  plunder  of 
articles  that  never  reached  the  commissary,"  &c.      *     *     * 

(See  2  Mem.,  page  182.) 

He  not  only  does  not  say  that  he  tried  to  prevent  his  army 
from  committing  these  outrages,  but  says,  on  page  255,  in  re- 
ferring to  his  march  through  South  Carolina: 

"I  would  not  restrain  the  army,  lest  its  vigor  and  energy 
should  be  impaired." 

He  tells  on  page  185  how,  when  he  reached  General  Howell 
Cobb's  plantation,  he  "sent  word  back  to  General  Davis  to  ex- 
plain whose  plantation  it  was,  and  instructed  him  to  spare 
nothing." 

To  show  what  a  heartless  wretch  he  was,  he  tells  on  page  194 
about  one  of  his  officers  having  been  wounded  by  the  explosion 
of  a  torpedo  that  had  been  hidden  in  the  line  of  march,  and  on 
which  this  officer  had  stepped    He  says: 

UI  immediately  ordered  a  lot  of  rebel  prisoners  to  be  brought 
from  the  provost  guard,  armed  with  picks  and  spades,  and 
made  them  march  in  close  order  along  the  road,  so  as  to  explode 
their  own  torpedoes,  or  to  discover  and  dig  them  up.  They 
begged  hard,  but  I  reiterated  the  order,  and  could  hardly  help 
laughing  at  their  stepping  so  gingerly  along  the  road,  where  it 
was  supposed  sunken  torpedoes  might  explode  at  each  step." 

It  may  be  fairly  inferred,  from  General  Sherman's  middle 
name  (Tecumseh),  that  some  of  his  ancestors  were  Indians.  But 
whether  this  be  true  or  not,  no  one  can  read  this  statement  of 
his  without  being  convinced  that  he  was  a  savage.  But  he 
was  not  only  a  confessed  savage,  as  we  have  seen,  but  a  con- 
fessed vandal  as  well.  He  says,  on  page  256,  in  telling  of  a 
night  he  spent  in  one  of  the  splendid  old  houses  of  South  Caro- 


12 

lina,  where,  lie  says,  "the  proprietors  formerly  had  dispensed  a 
hospitality  that  distinguished  the  old  regime  of  that  proud  State." 
"I  slept  (he  says)  on  the  floor  of  the  house,  but  the  night  was  so 
bitter  cold,  that  I  got  up  by  the  fire  several  times,  and  when  it 
burned  low  I  rekindled  it  with  an  old  mantel  clock  and  the  wreck 
of  a  bedstead  which  stood  in  the  corner  of  the  room — the  only  act 
of  vandalism  that  I  recall  done  by  myself  personally  during  the 
war.".  Since  the  admissions  of  a  criminal  are  always  taken  as 
conclusive  proof  of  his  crime,  we  now  know  from  his  own  lips 
that  General  Sherman  was  a  vandal. 

But  we  also  find,  on  page  287,  that  he  confessed  having  told 
a  falsehood  about  General  Hampton,  so  that  we  cannot  credit  his 
statement  that  the  foregoing  was  his  only  act  of  vandalism.  In- 
deed, Ave  think  we  have  most  satisfactory  evidence  to  the  con- 
trary. (It  will  be  noted,  however,  that  Sherman  makes  a  dis- 
tinction between  his  personal  acts  of  vandalism  and  those  he 
committed  through  others.)  A  part  of  this  evidence  is  to  be 
found  in  the  following  letter  from  a  lieutenant,  Thomas  J. 
Myers,  published  in  Vol.  12,  Southern  Historical  Society  Papers, 
page  113,  with  the  following  head  note: 

"The  following  letter  was  found  in  the  streets  of  Columbia 
after  the  army  of  General  Sherman  had  left.  The  original  is 
still  preserved,  and  can  be  shown  and  substantiated,  if  anybody 
desires.  We  are  indebted  to  a  distinguished  lady  of  this  city  for 
a  copy,  sent  with  a  request  for  publication.  We  can  add  nothing 
in  the  way  of  comment  on  such  a  document,  It  speaks  for  itself." 

The  letter,  which  is  a  republication  from  the  Alderson  West 
Virginia  Statesman,  of  October  29,  1883,  is  as  follows: 

Camp  near  Camden,  S.  C,  February  26,  1865. 
My  Dear  Wife : 

"I  have  no  time  for  particulars.  We  have  had  a  glorious 
time  in  this  State.  Unrestricted  license  to  burn  and  plunder  was 
the  order  of  the  day.  The  chivalry  have  been  stripped  of  most 
of  their  valuables.  Gold  watches,  silver  pitchers,  cups,  spoons, 
forks,  &c,  &c,  are  as  common  in  camp  as  blackberries.  The 
terms  of  plunder  are  as  follows:  The  valuables  procured  are  esti- 
mated by  companies.  Each  company  is  required  to  exhibit  the 
result  of  its  operations  at  any  given  place.  One-fifth  and  first 
choice  falls  to  the  commander-in-chief  and  staff,  one-fifth  to  corps 
commander  and  staff,  one-fifth  to  field  officers,  two-fifths  to  the 
company.  Officers  are  not  allowed  to  join  in  these  expeditions, 
unless  disguised  as  privates.  One  of  our  corps  commanders  bor- 
rowed a  rough  suit  of  clothes  from  one  of  my  men,  and  was  sue- 


13 

cessful  in  his  place.  He  got  a  large  quantity  of  silver  (among 
other  things  an  old  milk  pitcher),  and  a  very  fine  gold  watch 
from  a  Mr.  DeS'aussure,  of  this  place  (Columbia).  DeSaussure 
is  one  of  the  F.  F.  V.'s  of  South  Carolina,  and  was  made  to  fork 
out  liberally.  Officers  over  the  rank  of  captain  are  not  made  to 
put  their  plunder  in  the  estimate  for  general  distribution.  This 
is  very  unfair,  and  for  that  reason,  in  order  to  protect  themselves, 
the  subordinate  officers  and  privates  keep  everything  back  that 
they  can  carry  about  their  persons,  such  as  rings,  earrings,  breast- 
pins, &c,  &c,  of  which,  if  I  live  to  get  home,  I  have  a  quart. 
I  am  not  joking.  I  have  at  least  a  quart  of  jewelry  for  you  and 
all  the  girls,  and  some  No.  1  diamond  pins  and  rings  among 
them.  General  Sherman  has  gold  and  silver  enough  to  start  a 
hank.  His  sh-are  in  gold  watches  and  chains  alone  at  Columbia 
was  two  hundred  and  seventy-five. 

aBut  I  said  I  could  not  go  into  particulars.  All  the  general 
officers,  and  many  besides,  have  valuables  of  every  description, 
down  to  ladies'  pocket  handkerchiefs.  I  have  my  share  of  them, 
too. 

"We  took  gold  and  silver  enough  from  the  d — d  rebels  to  have 
redeemed  their  infernal  currency  twice  over.  *  *  *  I  wish 
all  the  jewelry  this  army  has  could  be  carried  to  the  Old  Bay 
State.  It  would  deck  her  out  in  glorious  style;  hut,  alas!  it  will 
be  scattered  all  over  the  North  and  Middle  States. 

"The  damned  niggers,  as  a  general  thing,  preferred  to  stay  at 
home,  particularly  after  they  found  out  that  we  wanted  only 
the  able-bodied  men,  and,  to  tell  the  truth,  the  youngest  and 
best-looking  women.  Sometimes  we  took  them  off  by  way  of 
repaying  influential  secessionists.  But  a  part  of  these  we  soon 
managed  to  lose,  sometimes  in  crossing  rivers,  sometimes  in 
other  ways.  I  shall  write  you  again  from  Wilmington,  Golds- 
boro,  or  some  other  place  in  North  Carolina.  The  order  to 
march  has  arrived,  and  I  must  close  hurriedly. 

"Love  to  grandmother  and  Aunt  Charlotte.  Take  care  of 
yourself  and  the  children.  Don't  show  this  letter  out  of  the 
family. 

"Your  affectionate  husband, 

"THOMAS  J.  MYERS, 

"Lieutenant,  &c." 

"P.  S. — I  will  send  this  by  the  first  flag  of  truce,  to  be  mailed, 
unless  I  have  an  opportunity  of  sending  it  to  Hilton  Head.  Tell 
Lottie  I  am  saving  a  pearl  bracelet  and  earrings  for  her.  But 
Lambert  got  the  necklace  and  breast-pin  of  the  same  set,     I  am 


14 

trying  to  trade  him  out  of  them.  These  were  taken  from  the 
Misses  Jamison,  daughters  of  the  President  of  the  South  Caro- 
lina Secession  Convention.  We  found  these  on  our  trip  through 
Georgia. 

"T.  J.  M." 


"This  letter  is  addressed  to  Mrs.  Thomas  J.  Myers,  Boston^ 
Mass." 


This  letter  was  published  in  the  Southern  Historical  Society 
Papers,  in  March,  1884.  About  a  year  thereafter  one  Colonel 
Henry  Stone,  styling  himself  "Late  Brevet  Colonel  U.  S.  Vol- 
unteers, A.  A.  G.  Army  of  the  Cumberland,"  realizing  the 
gravity  of  the  statements  contained  in  this  letter,  and  the  dis- 
grace these,  if  uncontradicted,  would  bring  on  General  Sher- 
man and  his  army,  and  especially  on  the  staff,  of  which  he  (Col- 
onel Stone)  was  a  member,  wrote  a  letter  to  the  Rev.  J.  William 
Jones,  D.  D.,  the  then  editor  of  the  Historical  Society  Papers, 
in  which  he  undertook  to  show  that  the  Myers  letter  was  not 
written  by  any  officer  in  General  Sherman's  army.  (This  letter 
can  be  found  in  Vol.  13,  S.  H.  S.  Papers,  page  439.)  The  rea- 
sons assigned  by  Colonel  Stone  were  plausibly  set  forth,  and  Dr. 
Jones,  in  his  anxiety  to  do  justice  even  to  Sherman's  "bum- 
mers," after  publishing  Colonel  Stone's  letter,  said  editorially, 
he  Was  "frank  to  admit  that  Colonel  Stone  seems  to>  have  made 
out  his  case  against  the  authenticity  of  this  letter."  If  the  mat- 
ter had  rested  here,  we  would  not  have  thought  of  using  this 
letter  in  our  report,  notwithstanding  the  fact  (1)  that  we  think 
the  letter  bears  the  impress  of  genuineness  on  its  face;  (2)  it  is 
vouched  for  by  what  Dr.  Jones  termed  a  "responsible  source," 
and  what  the  first  paper  publishing  it  cited  as  a  "distinguished 
lady,"  who,  it  also  stated,  said  that  the  original  was  "still  pre- 
served and  could  be  shown  and  substantiated;"  (3)  the  state- 
ments contained  in  Colonel  Stone's  letter  are  only  his  state- 
ments, uncorroborated  and  not  vouched  for  by  any  one,  or  by  any 
documentary  evidence  of  any  Icind,  and  being  those  of  an  alleged 
accomplice,  are  not  entitled  to  any  weight  in  a  court  of  justice; 
(4)  we  think  the  reasons  assigned  by  Colonel  Stone  for  the  non- 
genuineness  of  this  letter  are  for  the  most  part  not  inconsistent 
with  its  genuineness;  and  (5)  some  of  his  statements  are,  ap- 
parently, inconsistent  with  some  of  the  facts  as  they  appear  in 
the  records  we  have  examined,  e.  g.  He  savs  "that  of  the  ninety 
regiments  of  Sherman's  army,  which  might  have  passed  on  the 
march  near  Camden,  S.  C.  but  a  single  one — a  New  Jersey 
regiment— was  from  the  Middle  States.     All  the  rest  were  from 


15 

the  West.  A  letter  (he  says)  from  the  only  Thomas  J.  Myers 
ever  in  the  army  would  never  contain  such  a  phrase/'  referring 
to  the  fact  that  Myers  had  said  this  stolen  jewelry,  &c,  would 
be  scattered  "all  over  the  North  and  Middle  States."  Sher- 
man's statement  of  the  organization  of  his  army  on  this  march 
shows  there  were  several  regiments  in  it  from  New  York  and 
Pennsylvania,  besides  one  from  Maryland  and  one  from  New 
Jersey  (all  four  middle  States).  But  we  think  this,  like  other 
reasons  assigned  by  Colonel  Stone,  are  without  merit. 

But,  as  we  have  said,  notwithstanding  all  these  things  which 
seemingly  discredit  the  reasons  assigned  by  Colonel  Stone  for 
the  non-genuineness  of  this  letter,  ws  should  not  have  used  the 
latter  in  this  report,  had  not  the  substantial  statements  in  it  been 
confirmed,  as  we  shall  now  see.  The  Myers  letter  was  first  pub- 
lished on  October  29,  1883.  On  the  31st  of  July,  1865,  Captain 
E.  J.  Hale,  Jr.,  of  Eayetteville,  N.  C,  who  had  been  on  General 
James  PI.  Lane's  staff,  and  who  is  vouched  for  by  General  Lane 
as  "an  elegant  educated  gentleman,"  wrote  to  General  Lane, 
telling  him  of  the  destruction  and  devastation  at  his  home,  and 
in  that  letter  he  makes  this  statement: 

"You  have  doubtless  heard  of  Sherman's  'bummers.'  The 
Yankees  would  have  you  believe  that  they  were  only  the  strag- 
gling pillagers  usually  found  in  all  armies.  Several  letters  writ- 
ten by  officers  of  Sherman's  army,  intercepted  near  this  town, 
give  this  the  lie. 

"In  some  of  these  letters  were  descriptions  of  the  whole  bum- 
ming process,  and  from  them  it  appears  that  it  was  a  regularly 
organized  system,  under  the  authority  of  General  Sherman  him- 
self; that  one- fifth  of  the  proceeds  fell  to  General  Sherman,  an- 
other fifth  to  the  other  general  officers,  another  fifth  to  the  line 
officers,  and  the  remaining  two-fifths  to  the  enlisted  men." 

Now,  compare  this  division  of  the  spoils  with  that  set  forth 
in  the  Myers  letter,  published,  as  we  have  said,  eighteen  years 
later,  and  it  will  be  seen  that  they  are  almost  identical,  and  this 
statement  was  taken,  as  Captain  Hale  states,  from  "several  let- 
ters written  by  officers  of  Sherman's  army,"  intercepted  near 
Eayetteville,  N.  C,  and  as  we  have  said,  they  confirm  the  state-- 
ments  of  the  Myers  letter,  and  its  consequent  genuineness,  to  a 
remarkable  degree.  It  is  proper,  also,  to  state,  that  we  have  re- 
cently received  a  letter  from  Dr.  Jones,  in  which  he  states  that 
after  carefully  considering  this  whole  matter  again,  he  is  now 
satisfied  that  he  was  mistaken  in  his  editorial  comments  on  Col- 


16 

onel  Stone's  letter,  that  lie  is  now  satisfied  of  the  genuine- 
ness of  the  Myers  letter,  and  that  in  liis  opinion  we  could  use 
it  in  this  report  "with  perfect  propriety  and  safety."* 

We  have  discussed  this  letter  thus  fully  because  we  feel  satis- 
fied that  the  annals  of  warfare  disclose  nothing  so  venal  and 
depraved.  Imagine,  if  it  is  possible  to  do  so,  Robert  E.  Lee  and 
Stonewall  Jackson  commanding  an  army  licensed  by  them  to 
plunder  the  defenceless,  and  then  sharing  in  the  fruits  of  this 
plundering ! 

We  can  barely  allude  to  Sherman's  burning  of  Columbia,  the 
proof  of  which  is  too  conclusive  to  admit  of  controversy.  On 
the  18th  December,  1864,  General  H.  W.  Halleck,  major,  gene- 
ral, and  chief  of  staff  of  the  armies  of  the  United  States,  wrote 
Sherman  as  Follows:     *     *     *     *     * 

"Should  you  capture  Charleston,  I  hope  that  by  some  accident 
the  place  may  be  destroyed,  and  if  a  little  salt  should  be  thrown 
upon  its  site,  it  may  prevent  the  future  growth  of  nullification 
and  secession."        ;  ' 

To  this  suggestion  from  this  high  (?)  source  to  commit  mur- 
der, arson  and  robbery,  and  pretend  it  was  by  accident,  Sher- 
man replied  on  December  24,  1864,  as  follows: 

"I  will  bear  in  mind  your  hint  as  to  Charleston,  and  do  not 
think  that  'salt'  will  be  necessary.  When  I  move  the  Fifteenth 
Corps  will  be  on  the  right  of  the  right  wing,  and  their  position 
will  naturally  bring  them  into  Charleston  first,  and  if  you  have 
watched  the  history  of  that  corps,  you  will  have  remarked  that 
they  generally  do  their  work  pretty  well;  the  truth  is  the  whole 
army  is  burning  with  an  insatiable  desire  to  wreak  vengeance 
upon  South  Carolina  I  almost  tremble  for  her  fate,  but  feel 
that  she  deserves  all  that  seems  in  store  for  her.  I  look  upon 
Columbia  as  quite  as  bad  as  Charleston,  and  I  doubt  if  we  shall 
spare  the  public  buildings  there,  as  we  did  at  Milledgeville." 

2  Sherman's  Mem.,  pages  223,  227-8. 

We  say  proof  of  his  ordering  (or  permitting,  which  is  just  as 
bad)  the  destruction  of  Columbia  is  overwhelming.  (See  re- 
port of  Chancellor  Carroll,  Chairman  of  a  committee  appointed 

*Since  this  report  was  submitted,  we  have  received  a  letter  from 
the  husband  of  the  lady  who  had  the  original  of  this  Myers's  letter, 
setting  forth  the  time,  place  and  all  the  circumstances  under  which  it 
was  found  the  day  after  Sherman's  army  left  Camden.  (It  was  found 
near  Camden,  and  not  on  the  streets  of  Columbia.)  And  these  state- 
ments, together  with  others  contained  in  this  letter  and  in  the  Myers's 
letter,  too,  established  the  genuineness  of  the  Myers's  letter,  in  our 
opinion,  beyond  any  and  all  reasonable  doubt. 


17 

to  investigate  the  facts  about  this  in  General  Bradley  T. 
Johnson's  Life  of  Johnston,  from  which  several  of  these 
extracts  are  taken.)  Our  people  owe  General  Johnson  a  debt 
of  gratitude  for  this  and  his  other  contributions  to  Confederate 
history.  And  Sherman  had  the  effrontery  to  write  in  his  Me- 
moirs, that  in  his  official  report,  of  this  conflagration,  he  ''dis- 
tinctly charged  it  to  General  Wade  Hampton,  and  (says)  confess 
I  did  so  pointedly  to  shake  the  faith  of  his  people  in  him"  (See  2 
Sherman's  Memoirs,  page  287.)       ' 

The  man  who  confessed  to  the -world  that  he  made  this  false 
charge  with  such  a  motive  needs  no  characterization  at  the  hands 
of  this  Committee. 

General  Sherman  set  out  to  "make  Georgia  howl,"  and  pre- 
ferred, as  he  said,  to  "march  through  that  State  smashing  things 
to  the  sea."  He  wrote  to  Grant  after  his  march  through  South 
Carolina,  saying: 

"The  people  of  South  Carolina,  instead  of  feeding  Lee's  army, 
will  now  call  on  Lee  to  feed  them." 

(2  Memoirs,  page  298.) 

So  complete  had  been  his  destruction  in  that  State.  He  slso 
says : 

"Having  utterly  ruined  Columbia,  the  right  wing  began  its 
march  northward,"  &c. 

2  Memoirs,  page  288. 

On  the  21st  of  February,  1865,  only  a  few  days  after  the 
burning  of  Columbia,  General  Hampton  wrote  to  General  Sher- 
man, charging  him  with  being  responsible  for  its  destruction, 
and  other  outrages,  in  which  he  said,  among  other  things: 

"You  permitted,  if  you  have  not  ordered,  the  commission  of 
these  offences  against  humanity  and  the  rules  of  war.  You  fired 
into  the  city  of  Columbia  without  a  word  of  warning.  After 
its  surrender  by  the  Mayor,  who  demanded  protection  to  private 
property,  you  laid  the  whole  city  in  ashes,  leaving  amid  its  ruins 
thousands  of  old  men  and  helpless  women  and  children,  who 
are  likely  to  perish  of  starvation  and  exposure.  Your  line  of 
march  can  be  traced  by  the  lurid  light  of  burning  houses,  ?nd 
in  more  than  one  household  there  is  an  agony  far  more  bitter 
than  death. 

"The  Indian  scalped  his  victim,  regardless  of  age  or  sex,  but 


IS 

with  all  his  barbarity,  he  always  respected  the  person  of  his- 
female  captives.     Your  soldiers,  more  savage  than  the  Indian, 
insult  those  whose  natural  protectors  are  absent." 
3  Great  Civil  War,  601. 

SHERIDAN'S  OBDEBS  AND  CONDUCT. 

But  whilst  no  one  will  dispute  the  fact  that  Sherman  has  a 
clear  title  to  the  distinction  we  have  accorded  him  in  this  re- 
port, yet,  unfortunately  for  the  people  of  the  South,  he  has 
other  vailing  and  efficient  aids  in  his  work  of  devastation,  de- 
struction and  vandalism;  and  we  must  now  take  up,  for  a  time, 
the  work  of  his  "close  second,"  General  Philip  H.  Sheridan. 
This  officer  is  reputed  to  have  said  that  the  true  principles  for 
conducting  war  are — 

"First.  Deal  as  hard  blows  to  the  enemy's  soldiers  as  possible, 
and  then  cause  so  much  suffering  to  the  inhabitants  of  the 
country  that  they  will  long  for  peace  and  press  their  govern- 
ment to  make  it."  "Nothing"  (he  says)  "should  he  left  to  the 
people  hut  eyes  to  lament  the  war." 

He  certainly  acted  on  the  last  of  these  principles  in  his  deal- 
ings with  the  people  of  the  beautiful  Valley  of  Virginia,  which 
by  his  vandalism  was  converted  from  one  of  the  most  fertile  and 
beautiful  portions  of  our  land,  into  a  veritable  "valley  of  the 
shadow  of  death."  He  actually  boasted  that  he  had  so  deso- 
lated it,  that  "a  crow  flying  over  would  have  to  carry  his  own 
rations." 

In  Sheridan's  letter  to  Grant,  dated  "Woodstock,  October  7, 
1864,  he  says  of  his  work: 

"In  moving  back  to  this  point  the  whole  country,  from  the 
Blue  Bidge  to  the  North  Mountain,  has  been  made  untenable 
for  the  rebel  army. 

"I  have  destroyed  over  2,000  bams  filled  with  wheat  and 
hay  and  farming  implements;  over  TO  mills  filled  with  flour  and 
wheat;  have  driven  in  front  of  the  army  over  4,000  head  of 
stock,  and  have  killed  and  issued  to  the  troops  not  less  than 
3,000  sheep.  This  destruction  embraces  the  Luray  Valley  and 
Little  Eort  Valley,  as  well  as  the  main  valley. 

"A  large  number  of  horses  have  been  obtained,  a  proper 
estimate  of  which  I  cannot  now  make. 

"Lieutenant  John  B.  Meigs,  my  engineer  officer,  was  mur- 
dered beyond  Harrisonburg,  near  Dayton.  For  this  atrocious 
act  all  the  houses  within  an  area  of  fve  miles  were  burned." 


19 

It  is  not  generally  known,  we  believe,  that  this  policy  of  de- 
vastation on  the  part  of  Sheridan  was  directly  inspired  and 
ordered  by  General  Grant,  who,  in  Ins  Memoirs,  writes  with 
great  satisfaction  and  levity  of  the  outrages  committed  by  Sher- 
man, before  referred  to,  and  which  he,  of  course,  understood 
would  be  committed,  from  the  terms  of  Sherman's  telegram  to 
him,  and  which  he,  at  the  least,  acquiesced  in. 

On  the  5th  of  August,  1864,  he  (Grant)  wrote  to  General 
David  Hunter,  who  preceded  Sheridan  in  command  of  the  Val- 
ley, as  follows,  viz. : 

"In  pushing  up  the  Shenandoah  Valley,  where  it  is  expected 
you  will  have  to  go  first  or  last,  it  is  desirable  that  nothing 
should  be  left  to  invite  the  enemy  to  return.  Take  all  provisions, 
forage  and  stock  wanted  for  the  use  of  your  command,  such  as 
cannot  be  consumed  destroy.''''     *     * 

And  says  Mr.  Horace  Greely: 

"This  order,  Sheridan,  in  returning  down  the  Valley,  executed 
to  the  letter.  Whatever  of  grain  and  forage  had  escaped  appro- 
priation by  one  or  another  of  the  armies  which  had  so  frequently 
chased  each  other  up  and  down  this  narrow  but  fertile  and  pro- 
ductive vale,  was  now  given  to  the  torch." 

2  Am.  Conflict,  610-11.     2  Grant's  Memoirs,  581,  364-5. 

The  facts  about  the  alleged  murder  of  Lieutenant  Meigs,  for 
which  Sheridan  says  he  burned  all  the  houses  in  an  area  of  five 
miles,  are  these:  Three  of  our  cavalry  scouts,  in  uniform,  and 
with  their  arms,  got  within  Sheridan's  lines,  and  encountered 
Lieiitenant  Meigs,  with  two  Federal  soldiers.  These  parties 
came  on  each  other  suddenly.  Meigs  was  ordered  to  surrender 
by  one  of  our  men,  and  he  replied  by  shooting  and  wounding- 
this  man,  who,  in  turn,  fired  and  killed  Meigs.  One  of  the  men 
with  Meigs  was  captured  and  the  other  escaped.  It  was  for  this 
perfectly  justifiable  conduct  in  war  that  Sheridan  says  he  or- 
dered all  the  houses  of  private  citizens  within  an  area  of  five 
miles  to  be  burned. 

(See  proof  of  facts  of  this  occurrence,  to  the  satisfaction  of 
Lieutenant  Meigs'  father,  9th  South.  His.  Society  Papers,  page 
77.) 

BUTLER'S  OEDEK. 

Butler's  infamous  order  ]STo.  28,  directing  that  any  lady  of 
New  Orleans  who  should  "by  word,  gesture  or  movement  insult 


20 

or  show  contempt  for  any  officer  or  soldier  of  the  United  States, 
she  shall  be  regarded  and  treated  as  a  woman  of  the  town,  plying 
her  avocation/'  not  only  infuriated  the  people  of  the  South  and 
caused  the  author  to  be  "outlawed"  by  our  government,  and 
denominated  the  "beast,"  but  Lord  Palmerson,  in  the  British 
House  of  Commons,  "took  occasion  to  be  astonished  to  blush 
and  to  proclaim  his  deepest  indignation  at  the  tenor  of  that 
order."  .  (2  Greely,  p.  100.) 

But  we  are  sick  of  these  recitals,  and  must  conclude  our  re- 
port, already  longer  than  we  intended  it  should  be.  We  there- 
fore only  allude  to  the  orders  found  on  the  person  of  Dahlgren, 
to  burn,  sack  and  destroy  the  city  of  Richmond,  to  "kill  Jeff. 
Davis  and  his  Cabinet  on  the  spot,"  &c. 

The  infamous  deeds  of  General  Edward  A.  Wild,  both  in 
Virginia  and  Georgia,  and  that  of  Colonel  John  McNeil  in  Mis- 
souri, some  of  which  can  be  found  set  forth  in  the  first  volume 
of  the  Southern  Historical  Papers,  at  pages  226  and  232,  are 
shocking  and  disgraceful  beyond  description. 

Now  contrast  with  all  these  orders  and  all  this  conduct  on 
the  part  of  the  Federal  officers  and  soldiers,  the  address  of 
General  Early  to  the  people  of  York,  Pa.,  when  our  army  in-' 
vaded  that  State  in  the  Gettysburg  campaign;  or,  better  still, 
the  order  of  General  Robert  E.  Lee  to  his  army  on  that  march. 
We  will  let  that  order  speak  for  itself.    Here  it  is: 

"Headquarters  A.  1ST.  V., 
"Chambersburg,  Pa.,  June  27,  1863. 
"General  Orders  No.  73. 

"The  commanding  general  has  marked  with  satisfaction  the 
conduct  of  the  troops  on  the  march  and  confidently  anticipates 
results  commensurate  with  the  high  spirit  they  have  manifested. 
No  troops  could  have  displayed  greater  fortitude  or  better  per- 
formed the  arduous  marches  of  the  first  ten  days.  Their  conduct 
in  other  respects  has,  with  few  exceptions,  been  in  keeping  with 
their  character  as  soldiers,  and  entitles  them  to  approbation  and 
praise. 

"There  have,  however,  been  instances  of  forgetfulness  on 
the  part  of  some,  that  they  have  in  keeping  the  yet  unsullied 
reputation  of  the  army,  and  the  duties  exacted  of  us  by  civiliza- 
tion and  Christianity  are  not  less  obligatory  in  the  countrv  of 
the  enemy  than  in  our  own.  The  commanding  general  con- 
siders that  no  greater  disgrace  could  befall  the  army,  and 
through  it  to  our  whole  people,  than  the  perpetration  of  the 
barbarous  outrages  upon  the  innocent  and  defenceless  and  the 
wanton  destruction  of  private  property,  that  have  marked  the 
course  of  the  enemy  in  our  own  countrv.    Such  proceedings  not 


21 

only  disgrace  the  perpetrators  and  all  connected  with  them,  but 
are  subversive  of  the  discipline  and  efficiency  of  the  army  and 
destructive  of  the  ends  of  our  present  movements.  It  must  be 
remembered  that  we  make  war  only  on  armed  men,  and  that  we 
cannot  take  vengeance  for  the  wrongs  our  people  have  suffered 
without  lowering  ourselves  in  the  eyes  of  all  whose  abhorence 
has  been  excited  by  the  atrocities  of  our  enemy,  and  offending 
against  Him  to  whom  vengeance  belongeth,  without  whose  favor 
and  support  our  efforts  must  all  prove  in  vain.  The  command- 
ing general  therefore  earnestly  exhorts  the  troops  to  abstain, 
with  most  scrupulous  care,  from  unnecessary  or  wanton  injury 
to  private  property;  and  he  enjoins  upon  all  officers  to  arrest 
and  bring  to  summary  punishment  all  who  shall  in  any  way 
offend  against  the  orders  on  this  subject. 

"K.  E.  LEE,  General." 

The  London  Times  commented  most  favorably  on  this  order, 
and  its  American  correspondent  said  of  it  and  of  the  conduct 
of  our  troops: 

"The  greatest  surprise  has  been  expressed  to  me  by  officers 
from  the  Austrian,  Prussian  and  English  armies,  each  of  which 
have  representatives  here,  that  volunteer  troops,  provoked  by 
nearly  twenty-seven  months  of  unparalleled  ruthlessness  and 
wantonness,  of  which  their  country  has  been  the  scene,  should 
be  under  such  control,  and  should  be  willing  to  act  in  harmony 
with  the  long  suffering  and  forbearance  of  President  Davis  and 
General  Lee." 

To  show  how  faithfully  that  order  was  carried  out,  the  same 
writer  tells  how  he  saw,  with  his  own  eyes,  General  Lee  and  a 
surgeon  of  his  command  repairing  a  farmer's  fence  that  had 
been  damaged  by  the  army.  Indeed,  we  might  rest  our  whole 
case  on  the  impartial  judgment  of  a  distinguished  foreigner, 
who,  writing  in  1864,  drew  this  vivid  picture  and  striking  con- 
trast between  the  way  the  war  was  conducted  on  our  part  and 
on  that  of  the  Federals.    He  says: 

"This  contest  has  been  signalized  by  the  exhibition  of  some 
of  the  best  and  some  of  the  worst  qualities  that  war  has  ever 
brought  out.  It  has  produced  a  recklessness  of  human  life,  a 
contempt  of  principles,  a  disregard  of  engagements,  *  *  the 
headlong  adoption  of  the  most  lawless  measures,  the  public 
faith  scandalously  violated,  both  towards  friends  and  enemies; 
the  liberty  of  the  citizen  at  the  hands  of  arbitrary  power;  the 
liberty  of  the  press  aholished;    the  suspension  of  the  Habeas 


22 

corpus  act;  illegal  imprisonments;  midnight  arrests;  punish- 
ments inflicted  without  trial;  the  courts  of  law  controlled  by- 
satellites  of  government;  elections  carried  on  under  military- 
supervision;  a  ruffianism,  both  of  word  and  action,  eating  deep 
into  the  country  *  *  *;  the  must  brutal  inhumanity  in 
the  conduct  of  the  war  itself;  outrages  upon  the  defenceless, 
upon  women,  children  and  prisoners;  plunder,  rapine,  devasta- 
tion, murder — all  the  old  horrors  of  barbarous  warfare  which 
Europe  is  beginning  to  be  ashamed  of,  and  new  refinements  of 
cruelty  thereto  added,  by  way  of  illustrating  the  advance  of 
knowledge." 

He  further  says: 

"It  has  also  produced  qualities  and  phenomena  the  opposite 
of  these.  Ardour  and  devotednees  of  patriotism,  which  might 
alone  make  us  proud  of  the  century  to  which  we  belong;  a  una- 
nimity such  as  was  probably  never  witnessed  before;  a  wisdom 
in  legislation,  a  stainless  good  faith  under  extremely  difficult 
circumstances,  a  clear  apprehension  of  danger,  coupled  with  a 
determination  to  face  it  to  the  uttermost;  a  resolute  abnegation 
of  power  in  favor  of  leaders  in  whom  those  who  selected  them 
could  trust;  with  an  equally  resolute  determination  to  reserve 
the  liberty  of  criticism,  and  not  to  allow  those  trusted  leaders 
to  go  one  inch  beyond  their  legal  powers;  a  heroism  in  the  field 
and  behind  the  defences  of  besieged  cities,  which  can  match 
anything  that  history  has  to  show;  a  wonderful  helpfulness  in 
supplying  needs  and  creating  fresh  resources;  a  chivalrous  *nd 
romantic  daring,  which  recalls  the  middle  ages;  a  most  scrupu- 
lous regard  for  the  rights  of  hostile  property ;  a  tender  considera- 
tion for  the  vanquished  and  the  weak.  *  *  *  *  And  the 
remarkable  circumstance  is,  that  all  the  good  qualities  have  been 
on  the  one  side  and  all  the  bad  ones  on  the  other." 

In  other  words,  he  says  that  all  the  good  qualities  have  been 
on  the  side  of  the  South,  and  all  the  bad  ones  on  the  side  of  the 
North.  (See  Confederate  Secession,  by  the  Marquis  of  Lothian, 
p.  183.) 

And  all  this  was  written  prior  to  the  conduct  of  the  armies 
under  Sherman  and  Sheridan,  some  of  which  we  have  herein  set 
forth.  How  could  the  learned  Marquis  find  words  to  portray 
those  things? 

We  could  cite  other  authorities  to,  substantially,  the  same  ef- 
fect; but  surely  this  arraignment  from  this  high  source  ought 
to  be  sufficient.  If  any  one  thinks  this  distinguished  writer  has 
overdrawn  the  picture,  especially  in  regard  to  illegal  arrests  and 


23 

Imprisonments  and  brutal  conduct  towards  women  and  children, 
and  the  defenceless  generally,  let  them  read  a  little  book  en- 
titled, "The  Old  Capital  and  its  Inmates"  which  has  inscribed 
on  its  cover  what  Mr.  Seward  boastingly  said  to  Lord  Lyons,  the 
British  Minister  at  Washington,  on  September  14,  1861,  viz.: 

"My  Lord"  (he  says),  "I  can  touch  a  bell  on  my  right  hand 
order  the  arrest  of  a  citizen  of  Ohio.  I  can  touch  a  bell  again 
and  order  the  arrest  of  a  citizen  of  New  York.  Can  the  Queen 
of  England  in  her  dominions  do  as  much?" 

The  late  Judge  Jeremiah  S.  Black,  of  Pennsylvania,  at  one 
time  President  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  that  State,  and  after- 
wards Attorney-General  of  the  United  States  under  Mr.  Buch- 
anan, one  of  the  most  distinguished  lawyers  and  writers  of  his 
day,  thus  writes  of  Mr.  Seward  and  his  little  bell : 

"  Now  as  to  the  little  bell.  The  same  Higher  Law  which  gave 
the  Federal  Government  power  to  legislate  against  the  States, 
in  defiance  of  the  Constitution,  would  logically  justify  any  exec- 
utive outrage  that  might  be  desired  for  party  purposes,  on  the 
life,  liberty  and  property  of  individuals.  Such  was  Mr.  Seward's 
theory,  and  such  was  the  practice  of  himself  and  his  subordi- 
nates, and  some  of  his  colleagues." 

He  says  further  to  Mr.  Charles  Frances  Adams  (to  whom  he 
was  writing) : 

"I  will  not  pain  you  by  a  recital  of  the  wanton  cruelties  they 
inflicted  upon  unoffending  citizens.  I  have  neither  space  nor 
skill  nor  time  to  paint  them.  A  life-size  picture  of  them  would 
cover  more  canvas  than  there  is  on  the  earth."  *  *  *  "Since 
the  fall  of  Robespierre"  (he  says)  "nothing  has  occurred  to  cast 
so  much  disrepute  on  republican  institutions.  When  Mr.  Se- 
ward went  into  the  State  Department  he  took  a  little  bell  to  his 
office,  in  place  of  the  statute  book,  and  this  piece  of  sounding 
brass  came  to  be  a  symbol  of  the  Higher  Law.  When  he  desired 
to  kidnap  a  free  citizen,  to  banish  him,  to  despoil  him  of  his 
property,  or  to  kill  him  after  the  mockery  of  a  military  trial, 
he  rang  his  little  bell,  and  the  deed  was  done." 

(See  Black's  Essays,  page  153.) 

In  speaking  of  the  murder  of  Mrs.  Surratt,  he  says: 

"  In  1865,  months  after  the  peace,  at  the  political  capitol  of 


24 

tiie  nation,  in  full  sight  of  the  Executive  mansion,  the  Capitol 
and  the  City  Hall,  where  the  courts  were  in  session,  a  perfectly 
innocent  and  most  respectable  woman  was  lawlessly  dragged 
from  her  family  and  brutally  put  to  death,  without  judge  or 
jury,  upon  the  mere  order  of  certain  military  officers  convoked 
for  that  purpose.  It  was,  take  it  all  in  all,  as  foul  a  murder  as 
ever  blackened  the  face  of  God's  sky.  But  it  was  done  in  strict 
accordance  with  Higher  Law,  and  the  Law  Department  of  the 
United  States  approved  it." 

JSTow  this  is  what  a  Northern  man,  living  in  Washington  at 
the  time,  a  profound  lawyer  and  statesman,  has  to  say  of  these 
things. 

As  a  matter  of  course,  the  North  will  attempt  to  reply  (about 
the  only  reply  they  can  offer  with  any  apparent  justification): 
Well,  they  will  ask,  was  not  Chambersburg  burnt  by  General 
Early's  order1?  Yes,  it  was;  but  under  circumstances  which 
show  that  that  act  was  no  justification  whatever  for  the  out- 
rages we  have  set  forth  in  this  paper,  and  was  only  resorted 
to  by  General  Early  by  way  of  retaliation,  and  to  try,  if  possible, 
to  stop  the  outrages  then  being  committed.  It  was  only  resorted 
to,  too,  after  full  warning  and  an  offer  to  the  municipal  authori- 
ties of  Chambersburg  to  prevent  the  conflagration  by  paying  lor 
certain  private  property  just  previously  destroyed  by  General 
Hunter.  But  this  offer  these  authorities  refused  to  accede  to, 
saying  athey  were  not  afraid  of  having  their  town  burned,  and 
that  a  Federal  force  was  approaching."  General  Early  says  in 
his  report: 

"I  desired  to  give  the  people  of  Chambersburg  an  opportunity 
of  saving  their  town  by  making  compensation  for  part  of  the 
injury  done,  and  hoped  that  the  payment  of  such  a  sum  (one 
hundred  thousand  dollars  in  gold,  or  five  hundred  thousand  in 
greenbacks)  would  have  the  desired  effect,  and  open  the  eyes 
of  the  people  of  other  towns  at  the  North  to  the  necessity  of 
urging  upon  their  government  the  adoption  of  a  different 
policy." 

(See  Early's  Memoirs,  where  the  full  report  of  this  occurrence 
is  given.) 

Among  the  private  property  destroyed  by  Hunter,  for  which 
this  sum  was  demanded  by  General  Early,  were  the  private  resi- 
dences of  Andrew  Hunter,  Esq.  (then  a  member  of  the  Seuate- 
of  Virginia,  who  had  prosecuted  John  Brown  as  Common- 
wealth's Attorney  of  Jefferson  county,  Ya.);  of  Alexander  R. 


25 

Boteler,  Esq.  (an  ex-member  of  the  Confederate  and  United 
States  Congresses),  and  of  Edmund  J.  Lee,  Esq.  (a  relative  of 
General  Lee),  with  their  contents,  only  time  enough  having 
been  given  the  ladies  to  get  out  of  these  houses. 

General  Hunter  had  also  just  caused  the  Virginia  Military 
Institute,  the  house  of  Governor  Letcher,  and  numerous  other 
houses  in  the  Valley,  to  be  burned.  Even  General  Halleck, 
writing  to  General  Sherman  on  September  28,  1864,  refers  thus 
to  this  conduct  of  Hunter.     He  says: 

"I  do  not  approve  of  General  Hunter's  course  in,  burning 
private  houses  or  uselessly  destroying  private  property.  That 
is  barbarous."     *     * 

See  2  Sherman's  Mem.,  page  129. 

No  soldier  in  the  Confederate  army  understood  better  than 
General  Early  the  rules  of  civilized  warfare,  or  was  more  op- 
posed to  vandalism  in  every  form.  His  conduct  at  York,  Pa., 
before  referred  to,  and  his  address  to  the  people  of  that  town, 
show  this  in  the  most  satisfactory  manner.     He  says: 

"I  have  abstained  from  burning  the  railroad  buildings  imd 
car  shops  in  your  town  because,  after  examination,  I  am  satisfied 
that  the  safety  of  the  town  would  be  endangered.  Acting  in 
the  spirit  of  humanity,  which  has  ever  characterized  my  govern- 
ment and  its  military  authorities,  I  do  not  desire  to  involve  the 
innocent  in  the  same  punishment  with  the  guilty.  Had  I  ap- 
plied the  torch  without  regard  to  consequences,  I  would  have 
pursued  a  course  which  would  have  been  fully  vindicated  as  an 
act  of  just  retaliation  for  the  unparalleled  acts  of  brutality  on 
our  soil.    But  we  do  not  war  upon  women  and  children." 

General  B.  H.  Anderson,  in  his  report  of  the  Gettysburg 
campaign,  says: 

"The  conduct  of  my  troops  was  in  the  highest  degree  praise- 
worthy. Obedient  to  the  order  of  the  commanding  general, 
they  refrained  from  retaliating  upon  the  enemy  for  outrages 
inflicted  upon  their  homes.  Peaceable  inhabitants  suffered  no 
molestation.  In  a  land  of  plenty,  they  often  suffered  hunger 
and  want.  One-fourth  their  number  marched  ragged  and  bare- 
footed through  towns  in  which  merchants  were  known  to  have 
concealed  ample  supplies  of  clothing  and  shoes." 

On  the  2nd  of  July,  1863,  when  the  battle  of  Gettysburg  was 


26 

being  fought,  and  when  President  Davis  had  every  reason  to 
believe  we  would  he  victorious,  he  wrote: 

"My  whole  purpose  is,  in  one  word,  to  place  this  war  on  the 
footing  of  such  as  are  waged  by  civilized  people  in  modern  times, 
and  to  diveet  it  of  the  savage  character  which  has  been  impressed 
on  it  by  our  enemies,  in  spite  of  all  our  efforts  and  protests." 

Hoke's  Great  Invasion,  p.  52. 

Of  course,  we  do  not  pretend  to  say  that  there  were  not  indi- 
vidual cases  of  depredation  committed,  and  even  on  our  own 
people,  by  some  of  our  soldiers.  Indeed,  it  was  often  necessary 
for  our  army  to  subsist  on  the  country  through  which  it  marched, 
which  was  perfectly  legitimate.  And  when  we  remember  the 
sufferings  and  privations  to  which  our  armies  had  to  be  subjected 
by  reason  of  our  lack  of  necessary  supplies  of  almost  all  kinds, 
it  is  amazing  that  so  little  "foraging"  was  done  by  our  men. 
But  what  we  do  contend  for  and  state,  "without  the  least  fear  of 
contradiction,  is  that  the  conflict  was  conducted  throughout  on 
the  part  of  the  South — by  the  'Government  at  home  and  the  of- 
ficers in  the  field — upon  the  highest  principles  of  civilized  war- 
fare; that  if  these  were  ever  departed  from,  it  was  clone  without 
the  sanction  and  against  the  orders  of  the  Confederate  authori- 
ties. And  that  exactly  the  reverse  of  this  is  true  as  to  the  Fede- 
ral authorities,  we  have  established  by  the  most  overwhelming 
mass  of  testimony,  furnished  almost  entirely  from  Northern 
sources. 

But  we  cannot  protract  this  paper;  it  is  already  much  longer 
than  we  intended  or  desired  it  should  be.  We  would  like  to 
have  embraced  in  it  a  full  discussion  of  the  treatment  of  prison- 
ers on  both  sides;  but  we  must  leave  this,  and  the  treatment  of 
Mr.  Davis  whilst  a  prisoner,  for  some  future  report.  If  any 
one  desires,  in  advance  of  that,  to  see  a  full  discussion  of  these 
subjects,. we  refer,  as  to  the  former,  to  the  very  able  articles  by 
Rev.  J.  "William  Jones,  D.  D.,  in  Vol.  I.,  Southern  Historical 
Society  Papers,  beginning  with  page  113,  and  running  through 
several  numbers  of  that  volume,  in  which  he  adduces  a.  mass  of 
testimony,  and  completely  vindicates  the  South.    He  shows — 

(1)  (As  Mr.  Davis  states  it)  "From  the  reports  of  the  United" 
States  War  Department,  that  though  we  had  sixty  thousand 
more  Federal  prisoners  than  they  had  of  Confederates,  six  thou- 
sand more  of  Confederates  died  in  Northern  prisons  than  died 
of  Federals  in  Southern  prisons." 


27 

(2)  That  the  laws  of  the  Confederate  Congress,  the  regula- 
tions of  our  Surgeon-General,  the  orders  of  our  generals  in  the 
field,  and  of  those  who  had  the  immediate  charge  of  prisoners, 
all  provided  that  they  should  be  kindly  treated,  supplied  with 
the  same  rations  that  our  soldiers  had,  and  cared  for  when  sick 
in  hospitals  and  placed  on  precisely  the  same  footing  as  Con- 
federate soldiers. 

(3)  If  these  regulations  were  violated  by  subordinates  in  in- 
dividual instances,  it  was  done  without  the  knowledge  or  consent 
of  the  Confederate  authorities,  which  promptly  rebuked  and 
punished  any  case  reported. 

(4)  If  prisoners  failed  to  get  full  rations,  or  had  those  of  in- 
ferior quality,  the  Confederate  soldiers  suffered  the  same  priva- 
tions, and  these  were  the  necessary  consequences  of  the  mode 
of  carrying  on  the  war  on  the  part  of  the  North,  which  brought 
desolation  and  ruin  on  the  South,  and  these  conditions  were 
necessarily  reflected  on  their  prisoners  in  our  hands. 

(5)  That  the  mortality  in  Southern  prisons  resulted  from 
causes  beyond  our  control,  but  these  could  have  been  greatly 
alleviated  had  not  medicines  been  declared  by  the  Federal  Gov- 
ernment as  "contraband  of  war,"  and  had  not  the  Federal  au- 
thorities refused  the  ^offer  of  our  Agent  of  Exchange,  the  late 
Judge  Ould,  that  each  Government  should  send  its  own  surgeons 
and  medicines  to  relieve  the  sufferings  of  their  respective  sol- 
diers in  prisons — refused  to  accept  our  offer  to  let  them  send 
medicines,  &c,  to  relieve  their  own  prisoners,  without  any  such 
privilege  being  accorded  by  them  to  us — refused  to  allow  the 
Confederate  Government  to  buy  medicines  for  gold,  tobacco,  or 
cotton,  &c,  which  it  offered  to  pledge  its  honor  should  only  be 
used  for  their  prisoners  in  our  hands — refused  to  exchange  sick 
and  wounded,  and  neglected  from  August  to  December,  1864, 
to  accede  to  our  Agent's  proposition  to  send  transportation  to 
Savannah  and  receive  without  any  equivalent  from  ten  to  fifteen 
thousand  Federal  prisoners,  although  the  offer  was  accompanied 
with  the  statement  of  our  Agent  of  Exchange  (Judge  Ould), 
showing  the  monthly  mortality  at  Andersonville,  and  that  we 
were  utterly  unable  to  care  for  these  prisoners  as  they  should  be 
cared  for,  and  that  Judge  Ould  again  and  again  urged  com- 
pliance with  this  humane  proposal  on  our  part. 

(6)  That  the  sufferings  of  Confederates  in  Northern  prisons 
were  terrible,  almost  beyond  description ;  that  they  were  starved 
in  a  land  of  plenty;  that  they  were  allowed  fc>  freeze  where 


28 

clothing  and  fuel  were  plentiful;  that  they  suffered  for  hospital 
stores,  medicines  and  proper  attention  when  sick;  that  they  were 
shot  by  sentinels,  beaten  by  officers,  and  subjected  to  the  most 
cruel  punishments  upon  the  slightest  pretexts;  that  friends  at 
the  jSTorth  were,  in  many  instances,  refused  the  privilege  of 
clothing  their  nakedness  or  feeding  them  when  they  were  starv- 
ing; and  that  these  outrages  were  often  perpetrated  not  only 
with  the  knowledge,  but  by  the  orders  of  E.  M.  Stanton,  Secre- 
tary of  War  of  the  United  States. 

And  (7)  That  the  sufferings  of  prisoners  on  both  s;n'des  wr- 
caused  by  the  failure  to  carry  out  the  terms  of  the  Cartel  for 
exchange,  and  for  this  failure  the  Federal  authorities  were  alone 
responsible. 

These  propositions  are  stated  substantially  in  the  language 
employed  by  Dr.  Jones,  and  although  twenty-five  years  have 
since  elapsed,  they  have  never  been  controverted  in  any  es- 
sential particular,  as  far  as  we  have  heard  or  known.  Our  peo- 
ple owe  Dr.  Jones  a  debt  of  gratitude  for  this  able  and  effective 
vindication  of  their  course  in  this  important  matter,  which:  they 
can  never  repay. 

As  to  the  treatment  of  Mr.  Davis  whilst  a  prisoner: 

Captain  Charles  M.  Blackford,  of  Lynchburg,  Va.,  in  an 
article  read  before  the  Virginia  Bar  Association  at  its  meeting 
at  Old  Point,  in  1900  (the  facts  of  which  article  were  taken 
entirely  from  the  official  records  of  the  Federal  Government)^ 
showed  in  a  masterly  manner  that  this  treatment  was  the  refine- 
ment of  cruelty  and  cowardice  on  the  part  of  the  Federal  authori- 
ties, and  such  as  should  bring  the  blush  of  shame  to  the  cheek 
of  every  American  citizen  who  was  in  sympathy  with,  or  a  par- 
ticipant in,  those  acts.  Our  people  owe  Captain  Blackford  a 
debt  of  gratitude  also  for  this  article.  It  can  be  found  in  the 
printed  reports  of  the  Virginia  Bar  Association  for  1900.  Ten 
thousand  copies  of  it  were  ordered  by  the  Association  to  be 
printed  for  distribution. 

As  we  said  in  our  last  report,  it  will  doubtless  be  asked  by 
some,  who  have  no  just  conception  of  the  motives  which  actuate 
us  in  making  these  reports,  Why  we  gather  up  and  exhibit  to 
the  world  these  records  of  a  bitter  strife  now  ended  more  than  a 
third  of  a  century?  Does  it  not,  they  ask,  only  do  harm  by  keep- 
ing alive  the  smouldering  embers  of  that  conflict?  We  reply 
to  all  these  enquiries,  that  such  is  not  our  intention  or  desire. 
But  the  four  years  of  that  war  made  a  history  of  the  people  of 
the  JSTorth  and  of  the  people  of  the  South,  much  of  which  has 
been  written  only  by  historians  of  the  North.  In  this  history, 
all  the  blame  concerning  the  war  has  been  laid  on  the  people  of 


29 

the  South,  and  the  attempt  made  to  "consign  them  to  infamy." 
There  were  two  sides  to  the  issues  involved  in  that  war,  and  the 
historians  of  the  North,  with  the  superior  means  at  their  com- 
mand, have  used,  and  are  still  using,  these  means  to  convince 
the  world  that  they  were  right  and  that  we  were  wrong.  They 
are  striving,  too,  to  teach  our  children  that  this  was  the  case,  *'nd 
for  thirty  years  their  histories  were  taught  in  our  schools,  un- 
challenged, and  in  that  way  the  minds  of  our  children  were  pre- 
judiced and  poisoned  against  the  acts  and  conduct  of  their 
parents  in  regard  to  that  conflict.  We  therefore  feel  that  we 
owe  it  to  ourselves  and  to  the  memories  of  those  who  suffered 
and  died  for  the  cause  we  fought  so  hard  to  maintain,  to  let  our 
children  and  the  world  know  the  truth  as  to  the  causes  of  that 
conflict,  and  how  it  was  conducted.  This  Camp  has,  as  we  have 
said,  done  much  in  that  direction;  it  can  do  much  more;  and, 
in  our  opinion,  no  higher  or  more  sacred  duty  could  be  imposed 
on  or  undertaken  by  men. 

There  were  during  the  war,  and  there  are  now,  many  brave 
and  true  men  at  the  North.  There  were  many  such  in  the  Fede- 
ral armies,  and  there  were  many  of  these  who,  whilst  taking  sides 
with  the  North  on  the  question  of  maintaining  the  Union,  were 
shocked  and  disgusted  at  the  methods  pursued  by  it  to  accom- 
plish that  result.  These  have  written  and  spoken  about  these 
methods,  both  of  what  they  thought  and  of  what  they  knew, 
and  we  have  only  gathered  up  some  of  this  testimony  in  support 
of  the  justice  of  our  cause,  and  of  the  course  pursued  by  us  to 
maintain  it.  Surely  the  North  cannot  complain  if  we  rest  our 
case  upon  their  testimony.  We  have  done  this  almost  exclu- 
sively, both  in  this  and  in  former  reports.  The  history  contained 
in  these  reports,  then,  is  not  only  that  made,  but  also  that  written 
by  Northern  men. 

As  we  have  said,  many  of  these  were  brave  and  true  men, 
and  one  of  them  wrote  that  the  acts  committed  by  some  of  their 
commanders  and  comrades  were  enough  to  make  him  "ashamed 
of  the  flag  that  waved  over  him  as  he  went  into  battle."  Is  it 
surprising  that  such  was  the  case  ? 

It  is  said  that  General  Hunter  had  to  deprive  forty  of  his 
commissioned  officers  of  their  commands  before  he  could  find 
one  to  carry  into  execution  his  infamous  orders. 

We  have  drawn  this  contrast,  then,  between  the  way  the  war 
was  conducted  by  the  North  and  the  way  it  was  conducted  by 
the  South,  for  many  good  reasons,  but  especially  to  show  that  the 
Confederate  soldiers  never  made  war  on  defenceless  women  and 
children,  whilst  the  Federal  soldiers  did,  and  that  this  was  done 
with  the  sanction  of  some  of  their  most  noted  leaders,  some  of 
whom,  as  we  have  seen,  shared  in  the  fruits  of  the  depredations 


30 

committed  on  these  defenceless  people.  In  doing  this,  we  believe 
toe  have  done  only  what  was  just  to  ourselves  and  our  children. 

It  must  be  remembered,  too,  that  a  large  number  of  persons 
at  the  North  still  delight  to  speak  of  that  war  as  a  "  Rebellion" 
and  of  us  as  "  Rebels"  and  "  Traitors."  We  have  shown  by  the 
testimony  of  their  own  people,  not  only  that  they  rebelled 
against,  but  overthrew  the  Constitution  to  make  war  on  us,  and 
that  when  they  did  go  to  war,  they  violated  every  rule  they  had 
laid  down  for  the  government  of  their  armies,  and  waged  it  with 
a  savage  cruelty  unknown  in  the  history  of  civilization. 

The  late  commander-in-chief  of  the  British  armies  has  re- 
cently written  of  our  great  leader,  that  "in  a  long  and  varied  life 
of  wandering,  I  have"  (he  says)  "only  met  two  men  whom  I 
prized  as  being  above  all  the  world  I  have  ever  known,  and  the 
greater  of  these  two  was  General  Lee,  America's  greatest  man, 
as  I  understand  history." 

The  present  Chief  Magistrate  of  this  country  wrote  twelve 
years  ago,  that  "the  world  has  never  seen  better  soldiers  than 
those  who  followed  Lee,  and  that  their  leader  will  undoubtedly 
rank  as,  without  any  exception,  the  very  greatest  of  all  great 
captains  that  the  English-speaking  people  have  brought  forth." 
See  Life  of  Benton,  page  38. 

Is  it  a  matter  of  surprise,  then,  that  the  same  hand  should 
have  recently  written: 

"I  am  extremely  proud  of  the  fact  that  one  of  my  uncles  was 
an  admiral  in  the  Confederate  Navy,  and  that  another  fired  the 
last  gun  fired  aboard  the  Alabama.  I  think"  (he  says)  "the  time 
has  now  come  when  we  can,  all  of  us,  be  proud  of  the  valor 
shown  on  both  sides  in  the  civil  war." 

If  President  Roosevelt  really  believed  that  his  uncles  were 
ever  "rebels"  and  "traitors,"  would  he  be  "extremely  proud" 
of  that  fact?  Would  he  be  proud  to  be  the  nephew  of  Benedict 
Arnold?  No;  and  no  man  at  the  North  who  knows  anything  of 
the  foundation  of  this  Government  believes  for  a  moment  that 
any  Confederate  soldier  was  a  "rebel"  or  "traitor,"  or  that  the 
war  on  our  part  was  a  "  Rebellion."  Even  G-oldwin  Smith,  the 
harshest  and  most  unjust  historian  to  the  South,  wiho  has  ever 
written  about  the  war  (as  demonstrated  by  our  distinguished 
Past  Grand  Commander,  Captain  Cussons),  says: 

"The  Southern  leaders  ought  not  to  have  been  treated  as 
rebels,"  for,  says  he,  "  Secession  was  not  rebellion." 

And  so  we  say  the  times  has  come  when  these  intended  oppro- 


31 

brious  epithets  should  cease  to  be  used.  But  whether  called 
"rebels"  or  not,  the  Confederate  soldier  has  nothing  to  be 
ashamed  of.  Can  the  soldiers  of  the  Federal  armies  read  this 
record  and  say  the  same? 

Yes,  our  comrades,  let  them  call  us  "rebels,"  if  they  will;  we 
are  proud  of  the  title,  and  with  good  reason.  More  than  a  hun- 
dred years  ago,  when,  as  Pitt  said,  "even  the  chimney  sweeps 
in  London  streets  talked  boastingly  of  their  subjects  in  America," 
Bebel  was  the  uniform  title  of  those  despised  subjects  (and  as 
our  own  eloquent  Keily  once  said) : 

"This  sneer  was  the  substitute  for  argument,  which  Camden 
and  Chatham  met  in  the  Lords,  and  Burke  and  Barre  in  the 
Commons,  as  their  eloquent  voices  were  raised  for  justice  to  the 
Americans  of  the  last  century.  'Disperse  Rebels'  was  the  opening 
gun  at  Lexington.  'Rebels'  was  the  sneer  of  General  Gage  ad- 
dressed to  the  brave  lads  of  Boston  Commons.  It  was  the  title 
by  which  Dunmore  attempted  to  stigmatize  the  Burgesses  of 
Virginia,  and  Sir  Henry  Clinton  passionately  denounced  the 
patriotic  women  of  ISTew  York.  At  the  base  of  every  statue 
which  gratitude  has  erected  to  patriotism  in  America  you  will 
find  'Rebel'  written.  The  springing  shaft  at  Bunker  Hill,  the 
modest  shaft  which  tells  where  Warren  fell,  *  *  *  the 
fortresses  which  line  our  coasts,  the  name  of  our  Country's  Capi- 
tal, the  very  streets  of  our  cities — all  proclaim  America's  bound- 
less debt  to  rebels;  not  only  to  rebels  who,  like  Hamilton  and 
Warren,  gave  their  first  love  and  service  to  the  young  Republic, 
but  rebels  who,  like  Franklin  and  Washington,  broke  their  oath 
of  allegiance  to  become  rebels.'''' 

And  so  we  say,  let  them  call  us  what  they  may,  the  justice 
of  our  cause  precludes  fear  on  our  part  as  to  the  final  verdict  of 
history.  We  can  commit  the  principles  for  which  we  fought; 
we  can  confide  the  story  of  our  deeds ;  we  can  consign  the  heri- 
tage of  heroism  we  have  bequeathed  the  world  to  posterity  with 
the  confident  expectation  of  justice  at  the  hands  of  the  coming 
historian. 

"In  seeds  of  laurel  in  the  earth 

The  blossom  of  your  fame  is  blown, 
And  somewhere  waiting  for  its  birth 
The  shaft  is  in  the  stone." 

Yes,  truly, 

""The  triumphs  of  might  are  transient — they  pass  and  are 


32 

forgotten — the  sufferings  of  rigid  are  graven  deepest  in  the 
chronicle  of  nations." 

We  have  nothing  to  add  to  what  has  been  stated  in  our  former 
reports  about  the  histories  now  used  in  our  schools,  since,  as 
has  been  stated,  we  think  tuey  are  the  best  now  obtainable. 

We  are  glad  to  note  that  the  Rev.  J.  William  Jones,  D.  D., 
has  had  issued  a  new  edition  of  his  school  history  of  the  United 
States,  which  is  a  great  improvement  on  the  first  edition.,  and 
that  he  is  now  preparing  an  edition  for  use  in  High  Schools  and 
Colleges.  We  are  also  informed  that  the  Rev.  Henry  Alexander 
White,  D.  D.,  of  Washington  and  Lee  University,  has  in  press 
a  history  of  the  United  States.  Judging  from  Dr.  White's  Life 
of  General  Lee,  we  shall  be  disappointed  if  his  book  is  not  a 
good  one. 

We  hail  the  advent  of  these  works  by  Southern  authors  with 
the  greatest  interest  and  pleasure,  and  we  feel  satisfied  that  they 
are  the  natural  and  logical  outcome  of  the  efforts  made  by  these 
Confederate  Camps  to  have  the  Truth  taught  to  our  children. 
As  we  said  in  our  last  report,  so  we  repeat  here:  We  ash  for 
nothing  more,  and  will  be  satisfied  with  nothing  less.' 

Fiat  justicia  ruat  coelum. 

GEORGE  L.  CHRISTIAN, 

Chairman. 


Photomount 

Pamphlet 

Binder 

Gay  lord  Bros. 

Makers 
Syracuse,  N.  Y. 

PAT.  JAN  21,  1908 


UNIVERSITY  OF  N.C.  AT  CHAPEL  HILL 


00032721243 

This  book  must  not 
be  taken  from  the 
Library  building. 


Form  No.  471 


